edhodgsoned.bsky.social
Associate Director, Polling and Analysis, at More in Common
140 posts
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If they can't convince new voters to the ballot box, their lead over Labour falls significantly - from an 8 point lead to a 4 point lead if you just include 2024 voters in our voting intention calculations.
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Those 2024 non-voters to Reform UK voters are an important group to watch - The extent to which Reform can persuade them out to vote will determine a large part of their success.
Local elections suggested Reform might be better at this than other parties in the past.
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Not suggesting it's a majority view at all - and I definitely don't think it would be a good idea to limit voting right like this. But I am surprised that a fifth of people think it.
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I definitely do not think we should limit who can vote like this! But I do think it is interesting how many people support that idea
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To be clear - I don't support this myself (at all!) - Just think the levels of support are surprisingly high across the country
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And finally, among people with degrees - 24% think you should need maths and english GCSEs to vote. This is 19% among people without degrees.
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Interestingly there isn't a partisan divide on this, although when you look at our British Seven Segments, it is Disengaged Traditionalists who are most supportive
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And interestingly, older Britons seem slightly less empathetic towards Reform voters' motivations as well
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For context, there were 77 wards in 2021 where Labour won more than 50% of the vote.
Of those, 65 have declared so far, and Labour has only held onto 19 of them.
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And another one - this time hurting Labour, with Reform almost completely erasing their dominance on Durham council
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High pollen warnings across much of England today... Could spell danger for Labour as we know their core voters are more likely to have hayfever
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Absolutely - looks like far fewer people are editing these pages now than there used to be. 271 people edited the 2021 page 849 times, but in 2024 this was just 152 people 524 times... It's sad because I think the General Election wikipedia pages are still pretty great
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(Obviously always dwarfed by interest in General Elections)
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Another slightly surprising stat I found going through all this data - in every local election back to 1979, it's only rained in nine of them! (At Heathrow weather station)
The rainiest Local Elections: 2014 (8.2mm), 2024 (6.4mm) and 1994 (4.1mm)
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Should probably make these quizes a bit harder next time! Here are the answers for those who are asking
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Yep! One of the main difficulties with predicting results for local elections...
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So if Reform want to capitalise on their current popularity, they'll need to convince a lot of potential first-time local voters out to the ballot box - which could be a hard task - particularly given high disillusionment with politics
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The challenge, of course, will be to see - if he is elected next week - whether he can maintain this popularity when he has the responsibility of managing the mayoralty, and whether he can maintain his 'anti-politics'. and 'authentic' image.
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Luke Campbell - with his local roots and perceived understanding of the concerns of the area - had clearly cut to this generally disengaged group of voters. And his personal popularity is genuinely unique in an era when most politicians are extremely unpopular...
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One of the big questions about Reform UK has always been whether they can grow bigger than the personal popularity of Nigel Farage (already a divisive figure). The interesting thing from this group was glimmers of a future Reform party that is broader than that...
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Some were concerned about his lack of political experience ("I've no idea if he can manage a budget") - but most weren't fazed by this and in some cases it was part of the attraction
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The group really stuck with me because almost every group I've done over the last two years has been dominated by a sense of extreme pessimism about almost all of our politicians - Luke Campbell was one of few new politicians that I have heard such enthusiasm for
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another also summarised "Reform would not have been my go-to if I was just voting for a Party ... But I think Luke knows Hull ... and I think he has the right values"
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Carer Emily was really sceptical of Farage's national Reform party and called his politics "dangerous" - but for Luke Campbell she said "The person matters much more than the party" and wanted to support his bid to be Mayor
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But for me the most interesting thing about the group was the number of people who were willing to back Luke Campbell *in spite of*, not because of, his membership of Reform.
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They thought his motivations getting into politics were genuine: Shirley pointed out "For the last three years he's gone out and bought so much school uniform to help the schools and he hasn't done this to show off, but for me this was something he already was passionate about"
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As nurse Jodie put it "He's a genuine born and bred Hull lad and I think he's just going for what he believes in. And I think if you speak to majority of proper Hull born and bred people, they'll agree with him."
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Luke stood out to these voters because of his local roots - they'd seen his charitable work in Hull before and thought he better understood the area than the other council members running to be Mayor.
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But surprisingly, this national picture, nor support for Farage were the reasons why these voters were planning on voting for a Reform Mayor next week.
For these voters, it was all down to the personal attraction of Reform's Mayoral candidate, former boxer Luke Campbell.
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This group had mostly voted Labour in the past. Some felt that the new govt still needed more time, but most thought they hadn't lived up to their promises so far and were upset about policies like Winter Fuel Allowance changes. They were also very concerned about immigration.
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Some participants quite liked Farage ("He speaks a lot of sense" summed up Sheila). But for many in the group he was seen as untrustworthy and a bit too disruptive - as Karen put it "He just likes controversy but doesn't get much done".
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This was a group of voters who told us they planned to vote Reform in the election on Thursday. One of the surprising things to me was that this group was genuinely divided on Nigel Farage - instead they were voting for Reform for a completely different reason...
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In fact chlorinated chicken *tops the list* of red lines for the British public when it comes to new trade deals - it's more of a problem for Britons than human rights issues or animal welfare issues in the supply chain